


sentimental streak

by shadowdance



Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Childhood Friends, FE8 Week, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 07:46:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12526440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowdance/pseuds/shadowdance
Summary: Three times Colm comforted Neimi.





	sentimental streak

**Author's Note:**

> written for fe8 week, prompt: comfort/grief. This is technically both and I am two days late for that prompt oops. I tagged this as gen but I realized there's some minor cussing w/e.
> 
> I feel like this can go platonic or romantic; I don't ship colm/neimi romantically, but you can read this however you want!

i.

 

Colm finds her crying behind his house.

This isn’t anything unusual, and Colm feels that familiar irritation creep up his spine. Neimi hasn’t noticed him, but she’s sobbing rather loudly and it would be _hard_ for Colm not to hear her. He considers what to say to her and shoves the barbed words down, crouching down next to her.

“Neimi,” he says. Her name comes out rather rough, but it catches her attention anyways. Colm tries to make his next words softer. “What’s wrong?”

Neimi wipes her eyes. She opens her mouth and promptly bursts into tears again, a sob shaking her shoulders. Colm grinds his teeth.

“What happened, Neimi? Did someone say something to you?”

Between hiccups, Neimi nods. She covers her mouth with her hands, and the tears bump over her hands, her cheeks. Colm feels something rise in his chest—anger, he realizes, anger is sweeping over him.

“Oh, shit, Neimi, who?”

Neimi wipes her eyes, voice stumbling as she speaks. “J-just some guys,” she murmurs. “You know…”

“No, I don’t,” Colm says, a little too harshly, because Neimi bursts into tears again. Colm grimaces. “Neimi, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry. Look, look…tell me who they are, okay? And then, I’ll go get them, and make them apologize, and-”

“Don’t!” Neimi squeals, scrambling backwards like her hair was on fire. “N-no, don’t do that Colm, no!”

“Why not?”

Neimi gulps, looking panicked. Her hair is plastered to her forehead and she is looking directly at Colm, her eyes boring into his. “I-I don’t want any more trouble,” she says, a little nervously. “Really. It was just Malcolm, the merchant’s son, you know, and his f-friends. B-But don’t do anything! It’s fine.”

 _But you aren’t_ , Colm wants to say. Neimi is sniffling, still wiping tears with the back of her hand, and Colm wants more than anything to make people pay for this. He wants them to apologize, to take back what they said.

He says nothing, though, and just wraps an arm around Neimi, squeezing her shoulders tightly. And Neimi leans into him and bursts into sobs again, her fingers curling on his shoulder. Colm rubs her back and thinks of what he is going to do, a plan already unfolding in his mind.

The next day, the town boys leave Neimi alone, and Malcolm sports a new black eye and a scowl.

 

ii.

 

Colm waits for Neimi all day, but she doesn’t visit his house. He knows that she went to go practice her archery skills in the woods, but she promised to come back before the afternoon ended. Yet Colm sits and watches the sun fade away from the sky, watches the afternoon escape with no sign of Neimi.

He wonders if she got lost in the woods, so he goes to Neimi’s house to see if she’s home. Her mother answers the door and he is relieved; he doesn’t think Zeltha has forgiven him for stealing apples under his nose. Neimi’s mother says that Neimi hasn’t returned home all day, so Colm waits in the living room, tapping his foot restlessly.

It is almost midnight by the time Colm hears footsteps outside Neimi’s house. He jumps to his feet and bolts out the door, startling Neimi; she squeals and drops something in her hands.

“Gods, Neimi, where’ve you been?” Colm asks, relief seeping in his tone. “You had me worried sick!”

Neimi glances at the item on the ground, and then at Colm. She takes a shaky breath, opens her mouth—and bursts into tears.

Colm truly wishes that this was surprising.

“What happened?” he asks, kneeling next to her. Neimi won’t look at him.

“I b-broke Grandpa’s bow,” she cries, and Colm leans back, irritation washing over him.

“You’re crying about that? C’mon, Neimi…can’t you cry about something more important?”

“This _is_ important!” Neimi shrieks, so loud that Colm actually startles. Neimi bows her head, tears dripping down her face. “H-He’ll be so upset to find out that I—that I—I-I t-took the bow and then broke it!” and with that, a new wave of sobs come and Colm presses a hand to his temple.

“Alright, Neimi,” he says, trying to sound kind, “how did it break?”

She hiccups and covers her mouth, but through her tears she explains how she wanted to try shooting it, how she got startled and dropped it, how she accidentally stepped on it wrong and the bowstring snapped. Colm massages his temple—the _bowstring_? That was easily fixable.

“You do know how to restring a bow, right?” he asks, and Neimi blinks. “Come on—you’re an _archer_.”

Neimi gulps. “I…I didn’t really think about that. I was just—I was _worried_ what Grandpa would say…”

Colm rolls his eyes; he knows it’s dark enough that she won’t see it. “I’ll hold the bow, you string it up,” he says, and he crouches down. “Ready?”

Neimi stands there in silence, and Colm worries that he’s been too harsh until she speaks. “Y-You’re going to help me?”

Colm shrugs. “If it’ll get you to stop crying.”

Neimi crouches down and takes the bow, positively _beaming_ at him in the darkness. He knows, because he can _see_ her smiling radiantly at him. “O-oh, thank you so much, Colm! You’re the best!”

Colm feels his cheeks flush red.

 

iii.

 

Colm can read Neimi like a book; the older they become, the more he can tell. He knows when Neimi is happy, because she smiles so brightly that she outshines the sun, and he knows when she is angry, because she stomps her foot and puffs up her cheeks. Most tellingly, he knows when she’s sad, because her eyes always fill up with tears and she cries as noisily as she can.

But then Neimi drops by his house one day, and Colm can take one look at her to know that she has been crying. The difference is that she seems to be trying to hide it, and that worries him. Yes, he has never been _kind_ when Neimi has cried, but she never made an effort to hide her feelings from him.

“Grandpa died,” she says, and her voice catches. She hangs her head, and Colm feels his heart sink like a stone.

“Oh, shit, Neimi, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He means it; even though Zeltha had never really liked him, he knows how much Neimi adored him, and whoever made Neimi happy made Colm like them—or at least _tolerate_ them.

“C-Could you come to the funeral?” Neimi asks, her eyes cast low. There are tears pouring down her cheeks, but she keeps wiping the back of her hand. Colm says nothing, but he reaches out and takes her hand.

The funeral is that afternoon. Colm holds Neimi’s hand the whole time, keeping his eyes fixed on a patch of grass. Neimi is sniffling at his side, hiccupping and wiping her eyes, and Neimi’s mother stands stiffly to the edge. There is nobody else there, which is strange to Colm; he thought Zeltha was famous, a legend—but only his daughter, his granddaughter, and his granddaughter’s best friend are here to attend his funeral.

Maybe they wanted to bury him quickly. Maybe they didn’t want anyone else to know, so nobody could say _I’m sorry_ or give any grievances. Colm looks at Neimi, who looks so heartbroken, and something in his heart lurches. He squeezes her hand tightly.

Afterwards, after Zeltha is buried and gone, Neimi remains at the grave. Her jaw clenches, and her shoulders shake. Colm bites his tongue, not sure what to say. He doesn’t want to say _I’m sorry_ or _it’ll get better_ —he thinks it’s the last thing Neimi would want to hear.

“Neimi,” he says softly, and she swallows, eyes trained on the ground. “Neimi, we gotta go. It’s getting late.”

Neimi looks up at him for the first time. Her eyes are puffy, nose bright red, and there are still tear tracks evident on her face. “I can’t,” she says.

“Yeah,” Colm says, a little confused, “you can. C’mon, it’s late-”

“I _can’t_ ,” she repeats. She withdraws her hand from his, looking at the ground. “I can’t, it’ll just be m-me and M-Mother a-and-” her voice breaks on the last word, and then Colm understands. Neimi lived with her mother and her grandfather, and now her grandfather is dead. Neimi will return to a silent house with just her mother.

“You can stay at my house,” Colm says. He glances at the grave, and then at Neimi, who is scrubbing her tears away furiously. “Neimi. It’s okay.”

“N-No,” she mumbles. “Grandpa’s dead, a-and…e-everything is different…”

Colm swallows, unsure of what to say. He places his hands on her shoulders. “Hey—look at me, Neimi, look at me.”

When she meets his eye, he tries a smile. It feels uncomfortable and all wrong in the moment, but comforting a _grieving_ Neimi is something new, so he’s trying. Neimi sniffles, and Colm thinks of her gentleness, how soft she is when he’s sharp. He tries to be kind like her, just in this moment.

“Listen,” he says, “listen—you can stay at my place tonight, okay? You can sleep in my bed, I’ll take the floor, and tomorrow’s gonna be fine, okay? Tomorrow’s a new day. It’s okay, Neimi.”

It’s a shitty excuse for a pep talk, but Neimi suddenly bursts into tears. Without warning, she flings her arms around Colm’s neck and buries her face in his shoulder.

“C-Colm,” she sobs, “Colm…I don’t…I…I’m sorry…”

“What’re you apologizing for?” Colm asks, a little too roughly. He winces at how barbed the words sound, and Neimi pries herself off him. She looks shaky, and Colm reaches out and wipes the tears from her cheeks.

“I don’t know,” she says, and laughs a little. A hiccup escapes her throat, and Colm takes her hand again.

“It’s okay,” he says gently, and squeezes her hand. “C’mon, Neimi—let’s go home.”


End file.
